Seagate this morning announced plans to acquire LaCie, a Paris-based producer of consumer data storage devices, for at least $186 million.

Seagate has already agreed to buy a controlling stake in the company. Once that transaction has been completed, Seagate said it plans to buy the rest of LaCie’s shares in cash.

LaCie has long been front and center for Mac users as a supplier of storage peripherals. The company has featured hard drive enclosures designed by Porsche and Phillipe Starck, and supports Thunderbolt, the high-speed I/O interface Apple introduced in 2011 with the redesigned MacBook Pro.

Yes, I agree (staring at my LaCie that mirrors a Mac Mini: power supply died last week).

Andre Friedmann

Amen, amen, amen. Except for the monitors, LaCie’s been another company that uses its buyers as the final quality control check. When I had the time to shop retail, the solution for LaCie was always crack open the box and power up on premises to rule out dead-on-arrival units.